The Palace Of Curiosities Part 26

'Of course, of course. But I do wonder if you might become enchanted by the sights you see. I fear some gentleman might tip his hat to you and you might be bewitched away from me.'

'How could that happen?'

'Oh, men of the world have ways to entice an innocent creature such as yourself.'

I hesitated. 'I shall return straightway, dear husband. Be a.s.sured of my devotion. There is no need to be concerned on that account.'

I willed him to raise his eyes and meet mine with a kind glance, but he was attending to the task of reading. One affectionate word was all it would take to keep me.

'I am not concerned. In any case, make sure they do not charge you the entry fee. Lift up your veil if they insist.'

'I thought I might not wear it.'

He looked over the top of the paper.

'Of course, that is your choice, Mrs Arroner. I am sure people are grown much kinder these days.'

'I am famous,' I hazarded. 'I am their own Lion-Faced Girl. They have taken me to their hearts. My only dilemma will be the signing of so many autographs.'

My voice contained a tremble I hoped he did not hear.

'Indeed, Mrs Arroner, you must take a pencil. I believe I have one you may borrow.'

I sat down on the edge of the fiddle-back chair and felt the seat sag accommodatingly beneath me: it would be comfortable to remain seated. I chewed my lip. Thought of the crowds: the line between affection and repulsion.

'Maybe it will turn to rain after all?' I said as though I did not care overmuch. I could just see the top of his head over the brim of the paper, his scalp gleaming through his thinning hair. 'These are new gloves,' I continued. 'You gave them to me.'

He did not lower the newspaper.

'I do so want to call upon the Cow-Horned Lady.'

'I will purchase her carte de visite for you,' he remarked, and then stopped, slamming the paper on to the table-top. The cups and saucers danced.

'Mr Arroner?'

'That's it? Of course! Capital! I am a genius! All the best people have these new cards, even the monstrous. It is just the thing we lack, and precisely the thing we need. Imagine it.' He wiped his palm across the air as though clearing a s.p.a.ce on a bookshelf. 'Who is the fairest of them all? You! Ladies, we have proof irrefutable. Your photograph taken with the only true and genuine Lion-Faced Woman. Every lady a princess by comparison. Guaranteed.'

'You are very clever.'

'Clever? I am a wizard! A worker of miracles! What better than to be in at the start, when the rage for these cards is new and fresh. Imagine, dear wife, your face for sale, by the hundredweight. Available for purchase, by high and low regardless.'

'Dear Mr Arroner-'

'She looks you in the eye! Dare you face Medusa's glare!'

I sighed.

'I am glad that you are happy.'

'I am delighted.'

His face gleamed. He grinned at me.

'I do not wish to spoil these gloves,' I declared. 'I shall stay here.'

'Will you?'

The smile teetered.

'Yes. Will you read to me from the latest news, my dear? We could spend a pleasant hour together.'

He placed the paper on to his lap.

'I should enjoy that very much, Mrs Arroner,' he said, folding the sheet. 'But I have a pressing engagement the business of men. I declare, it fatigues me greatly. I should much rather spend the morning with you.'

He looked at his watch.

'Ah, it is almost afternoon.' He stood, crooked his forefinger into a hook and nudged me under the chin. 'How you would be lost and strayed without my guiding hand,' he remarked, chuckling.

He left the room. I listened to the pleasurable creaks of the chair released from his weight.

My husband returned that evening with a new dress of green satin to set off the spun flax of my hair. One thing which had not changed was his purchasing of clothing which I thought immodest.

'It is a little short, Mr Arroner,' I said, for it did not reach my ankles.

'It is what the most fashionable ladies are wearing this season,' he protested, not looking me directly in the eye. 'Besides, we have to keep tantalising them with the hope that you might lift up your skirts.'

He watched my eyebrows climb.

'Which of course you will not, Mrs Arroner.'

'I should hope not, neither,' barked Lizzie. 'Don't want her diverting any of my trade up her river.'

'Do not worry yourself, Elizabeth.' He smiled. 'You are our Wh.o.r.e of Babylon. There could never be any to touch you.'

Lizzie preened herself.

'There's a fair queue outside,' said Bill.

'This is two shows in one,' crooned my dear Mr Arroner. 'They come to have their pictures taken. They come to watch the pictures being taken. It is brilliance.'

There was the fraught silence of antic.i.p.ation as Bill pulled back the curtain and we waited for the opening burst of applause.

'Step up!' bawled my husband, drilling the point of a walking stick at me. 'Step up and take a seat! Your picture with the Lion-Faced Woman! Quick as lightning by virtue of the Collodion Wonder of the Photographic Art! One shilling only!'

They were here to stare into my magic mirror; for always I gave the same answer: You are the fairest. Even the ugliest could walk away satisfied that there was one woman more foul-featured than her.

'Is she animal or human? Her visage cries out animal! But her manners are those of the most tenderly raised female. Which gives great satisfaction to all who venture to see her.'

There were two seats set up, and I filled only one. Lizzie had brushed and combed me till I shone like the glossy cushion I crossed my ankles on. The drop behind me was painted like a forest glade, blotted with sunshine through sharp-edged leaves.

'Be not afraid. Be venturesome! Come, ladies, step forward!'

For all that I might work miracles for the hideous, no-one wanted to be first.

'We all know the story of Samson and the lion. Come and see this lioness made lamb-like! For out of the strong came forth sweetness, as was made clear to me by the Dean of Cologne, who travelled all the way from Germany to view this marvel! She is our Lion Princess. Our kitten, who will purr as sweet as any puss. Approach without fear!'

My husband stalked the length of the front row of chairs, and fixed on the plainest woman in the room, a woman who was fat whilst lacking any of Lizzie's pride. She tried to squirm away from his attention, but he had her in his sights.

'Ah! Sweet Cupid! You have stuck me with your dart!' he mugged, clutching his breast. 'I am slain!'

There was a ripple of mirth at the sight of my dandy-c.o.c.k of a husband losing his heart to such a slab of flesh. He grasped her vast hand and lifted it to his lips.

'Such porcelain skin! Such maidenly modesty! Oh, how I am slain by the arrows of Venus!'

The ripple became a surge of laughter.

'Will you not step forward, dearest miss?'

'Madam, I think!' came the cry, and the audience hooted with delight.

'Go on, love, up you go,' yelled an encouraging voice.

'Ladies and gentlemen! Is she brave enough to hold the paw of the fearsome lioness?'

'Yes, go on, love!'

'Do it!'

She was pushed to her feet, made to gather up her skirts and sway across the s.p.a.ce between us. The effort of those few steps up flushed her face with tough breath. She bared her teeth, displaying gums shrunk back from grey stumps, and lowered herself puffing into the chair beside me. I flashed my row of little pearls and she glared as though she'd like to skittle them down, one by one.

I nodded, and reached out to her, palm up to show the pad, pink and safe. Her hand edged across the s.p.a.ce between us.

'Brave woman! Brave, brave woman!' bellowed my husband to the delight of the crowd. 'Ah! But will she bite? And will she bite too?' he added, pointing the cane at me again, to greater guffaws.

'I meant the beast, sir! Not your wife! You look nibbled enough!'

The audience cackled.

'No,' he continued. 'Our lioness is as gentle as a kitten. Look how she licks her paw!'

At his signal I raised my hand obediently to my lips, to aws, and aahs, and isn't-it-pretty.

'Are you ready now?' he said, half to the sack of a female by my side, half to the audience. 'Are you ready, I said?'

'Yes!' came the chorus.

'Are you ready, Mr Photographer?'

George waved from behind the great wooden box, the fancy equipment brought in as a favour from one of my husband's many a.s.sociates. I clutched at her hand and set my teeth in a rictus grin. As I counted out the long moments of the exposure the strangeness happened, reminding me of when I had touched Abel's hand previously. I had thought that he was a fluke, that I could find my way into his inner world alone. But it seemed as though he had been the catalyst for a new skill. My fingers tasted the texture of her skin, the lines running back and forth across her palm. Gypsy-paths, my mother had called them.

I followed those paths as they led to her inmost secrets: I was singed by the heat of her tears as her son died two hours after birth; I sweated with the mortal fever of her daughter, five years before. I saw further back, to the unwelcome fumble of her father's hands; I heard her scream and no-one come; I swilled the beer she poured into the s.p.a.ce in her heart to drown out all memory: all of it flooded into me, scorching hotter and hotter.

At last, George cried out, 'Done!' and I pulled my hand away from hers, whimpering.

'What's its problem?' she growled, wiping her face with a large yellow handkerchief. 'Aren't I good enough for it to touch? Airs and graces, that's what I say, from dogs what don't deserve them.'

The room swung around my head and I clutched my aching paw to my breast. Mr Arroner simpered at her side.

'Not a dog, dear lady!' he crooned. 'A sweet and harmless kitten!'

'Whatever you will,' sniffed the woman, hoisting herself from the chair. 'I'll have my picture, if you please.'

'And with our compliments!' he cried. 'Prepared and delivered to your door! Besides, we would not dream of requesting payment from such a kind lady as yourself.'

The walls continued to heave as she was bundled away.

'What was that about?' said my husband, when she was gone. 'You will not upset our guests, my dear.'

'No more photographs,' I hissed. My brain was hammering against the confines of my skull.

'There will be photographs, and plenty of them. Stop this foolishness,' he said.

'Then let me catch my breath.'

'Shut up, Arroner,' said Lizzie. 'Look at her, she's turning blue.'

'How can you tell through her b.l.o.o.d.y hair?'

'Look at her lips, you idiot.'

They pushed water down my throat, and fanned me with an advertising playbill. All I could see was my pinched face flickering back and forth before me. Is she Beauty? Is she Beast? I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of myself.

'I said, what is the matter?' cried my husband, to anyone who might attend to him.

Lizzie held her face close to mine. 'Are you taken, pet?' My eyes asked the question. 'Taken,' she repeated. 'In the female way.'

I turned my head slowly from side to side. She looked dis-appointed.

'It's a shame,' she muttered. 'You might keep him longer.'

'He does not touch me,' I whispered into her ear. 'Not at all.'

She hauled herself upright. 'Well, she's not in the family way,' she puffed.

My husband blinked.

Presently, I was able to sit upright and drink a little from the gla.s.s of spirits that was pushed under my nose.